


The Sun In Her Splendor

by Moonsheen



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Battlefield, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, Hallucinations, One-Sided Relationship, Prompt Fill, Templar Angst, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 12:38:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3173958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonsheen/pseuds/Moonsheen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leading the Inquisition's forces in one final battle against the Red Templars,  Commander Cullen finds himself faced with a valley on fire, a ton of Red Lyrium, and the memory of a woman who died ten years ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sun In Her Splendor

**Author's Note:**

> Response to a prompt on the Dragon Age kink meme. Request was: Cullen/f!Amell. A hallucination that is on his side for a change...

The Red Lyrium grows from the ground. It cracks and twists. It sounds like breaking ice. It sounds like armor scraping along stone. The Red Templars regroup. The Red Templars creep up the hill. Their bodies twisted into a parody of a military salute: their swords raised to their faces, ready to die, ready to serve, even as the stones rend their plate. It crawls over their gauntlets. It breaks through their lips. It creaks behind their eyes. Red. Red. Red. And with it that sickly scent, that sickly song, vibrating loud enough across the field Cullen can hear it. He glances at Rylen, who gives a sickened nod. They all hear it. They all remember it.

 

“Tell the mages to enchant another round,” says Cullen. “And load the trebuchets. That's a heavy force on the ridge. We need to thin them out.”

 

“Commander,” says Rylen, vanishing back into the ranks.

 

A Venatori fireball falls close to front line. Debris flies. For a moment, the advancing Red Templars are obscured by smoke. The light's not gone for long though. Above them, the dragon screams, and sure enough the crystals are forcing themselves out of the ground. The singing is louder now.

 

Cullen wonders, as he did in Haven, just what the Hero of Ferelden saw at the end – and if it looked anything like this.

 

First Officer Lysette pulls herself out of a pile of rubble. She hears the singing. She remembers. She braces her shield against the stone and stumbles to her feet.

 

The song's almost beautiful.

 

“More of them,” gasps Lysette. “They're coming from over the ridge.”

 

“And we will hold,” says Cullen. “Our mages won't be up to fighting those ...” Men, men, knights of the Order, once. “Those _things_ close range. The Inquisitor needs the cover from ranged fighters. If the enemy breaks that, she'll be overrun.”

 

Lysette doesn't argue. She wouldn't. She simply shuts her eyes and nods, once. “Commander.”

 

They all keep calling him that. They all keep looking to him, as though he's somehow above the worst of it. They don't know he can still feel the Lyrium song vibrating in his _teeth_. He remembers. Of course he does. It sang in his veins, same as theirs.

 

“Forward,” says Cullen, managing somehow to make his voice carry above rumble of magic, cannons, and crystals. “First and third columns, to me, and forward. Second and fourth, hold this position. If we can pin them in the valley, the mages can pick them off.”

 

“The valley?” Even Lysette falters. “But... Ser. These men may be corrupted, but they're not fools. How do we lure them down--?”

 

“With me,” Cullen says again. To his left, a standard bearer struggles to keep the flag aloft. He takes the flag off the girl's hands.

 

“Commander!” says Lysette, again, banging her shield against the ground in acknowledgment. It aches to see it.

 

 

In the valley it's worse. The Red Templars seem to claw their way out from beneath the earth, even as they pour down on them from over the ridge. The Commander of the Inquisition is a prominent target, and one the horde is all too eager to bring down for the glory of their master. They take the bait. He is in the valley, and they come to meet him.

 

Perhaps it is a bit personal to them – these men and women of the Order who never escaped the snare they once so fervently believed in. They come crashing after him now. Shoulder to shoulder, swaying under the weight their disfigurements.

 

The valley is stained in red, but somehow through the line, he wonders if he sees a flicker of blue and silver.

 

Another round of ballistics breaks a rock up on the ridge. Cullen tips his shield up against the spray of dirt and flying stones. To his left, he sees a whole row of Red Knights go down.

 

“Inquisition,” he calls over the din. “Inquisition stand your ground.”

 

Lyrium erupts from the enemy nearest to him. Their flesh is hard and smooth. He—she--- _i_ _t_ shambles towards him. Its red sword hits a piercing note as it slices downwards. He answers the blow. As their swords lock he thinks he hears the hiss of the Knight Commander Meredith's voice in his head: 'Idiot boy...!'

 

He buries his blade deep in the creature's chest. It lodges deep in the space that was once a man or woman's heart. The creature howls – it sounds entirely too human. The liquid that sprays from its chest screams at him. He kicks it in the abdomen. His sword slides free, but the creature thrashes in its death throes. The block of cracked Lyrium that was once its shield strikes him in the side.

 

His shoulder crumples under the blow in a hot burst of pain. He flies ten feet backwards. Only the rise of the slope stops him.

 

Somewhere, a familiar voice calls: “Ser Cullen? Is that you?”

 

It's not a gentle landing. His armor spares him a broken back. It does not spare him much else. His arm is most definitely broken and, as he struggles to take in a stinging breath, he suspects at least a few of his ribs are as well.

 

Still, he hauls himself to his feet. One of his men brings him a potion. It takes away most of the burn from the breaks. He pulls the straps tighter on his shield, though his arm can barely lift it effectively.

 

“...they keep _coming_ ,” he mutters.

 

“Another wave from over the ridge,” says a woman. He sees a flicker for robes and thinks for a moment it's – no, its a Templar surcoat. Ser Lysette? Ser Agatha? They're wearing a helmet. He can't immediately tell, his head's ringing. “Commander, you're injured. If you would like to pull back to safer ground, we will cover your withdrawal...”

 

Agatha. “They're coming for me,” he says. He's spattered in glowing blood. He swipes at some of it, even just on his fingers, he hears the prickle of its song. “Let them, if it keeps them in range.”

 

They come. They keep coming. At some point Cullen loses track of just how many pour down from the high ground. He loses track of the number of rounds that come from their enchanted trebuchets. They keep firing, so he knows the line has not been broken. That is enough to keep him moving, though by now the ground is more red than grey. Still, the world goes strange and closed around him with each blow. It's hard to see the terrain of the valley, and not the endless halls of Kinloch Hold. It's hard to hear the echoing cries of the Red Templars, and not the distorted shrieks of abominations.

 

The sound is overwhelming. At some point, Cullen begins to sing under his breath. It's not enough to drown out the screams of the dragon, the dying, and the never-ending thrum of Lyrium – but it is enough to keep him on his feet, keep him in the _here_ and _now_ – until another errant streak of fire sends him tumbling.

 

He lands on his back, and suddenly all he sees is the grey of the stormy skies. Commander Cullen lies still, gasping for breath.

 

“Why did you stop?” Robes brush his bloodied hand. A staff settles against the stone next to his head. He shuts his eyes. “I always thought you had a pretty voice. I'd sneak up during services, to hear you sing the Chant.”

 

'Ah,' thinks Cullen, as he hears the hand brush over his breastplate. 'So. This is how close I am to my end.'

 

“Apprentice Amell,” he mutters, not opening his eyes. “You weren't allowed on that level that time of day.”

 

“No,” she admits, “And I barely knew your name.”

 

He suspects if he opens his eyes she'll be gone. He opens them anyway. She's there. She's sits next to him, wearing the robes of a Grey Warden. The silver and blue brocade is streaked with soot and blood. He recognizes the stains and the scrapes her gauntlet. The frayed hem of her sleeve. He recognizes her dark hair. Her dark eyes. The Lyrium song has finally gone dim. The sounds of battle seem very far away.

 

“Come to let me out again,” he mutters. “You must be tired of this.”

 

“Not really,” says the Warden, tilting her head to one side. She looks so young. It's a little amazing, to realize how young she'd been when it had all gone wrong. “I only came to save you once. I never thought to ask how many times it'd been for you. That must have been awful.”

 

He'd lost track after the first eleven.

 

“It doesn't matter,” he says, and his voice starts to falter. Ten years. It's been ten years, and all at once he's a stammering boy. “Whether or not you're here now. It doesn't matter. My Lady Amell... I really must--- forgive me, I--”

 

How would he have said it? How? All this time, and he's still grasping. He reaches for her before he even thinks about it. She takes his hand and places it back on his chest. He can't feel it through his armor.

 

“Forgive you?” The Warden blinks. She's genuinely confused. “What for?”

 

“Don't say that,” he says. “It shouldn't be that easy. Please, Lady, I--”

 

“I mean it,” she says. “I don't remember everything you said. I'd heard crueler things before I'd met you. I heard crueler things after I met you.”

 

“And would that...” He swallows. It's the truth. It's nothing but the truth. “Would that I could have been the sort of man to spare you all of it.”

 

“You weren't,” she says, simply. “But it's a really sweet thought. I didn't need it, though. To be spared things, that is. I think I lived and died the way I wanted to. For something I chose, and with only a few regrets.”

 

“Regrets? You?” Now, that's off. “They'll sing songs about you for ages to come.”

 

“And they'll forget all the stupid bits.” She laughs. He remembers her laugh. The way she'd giggled at the other initiates, as he'd fled the room. “Of course I have regrets. Doesn't everyone? You always took everything so seriously, Ser Cullen. You think of me and you see a wronged woman to whom you owe an unpardonable debt. It's flattering, but do you think, after ten years, she would have held that sad, terrified Templar so close to her heart? That she would have remembered him in her every hour, and wonder what had become of him?”

 

“No,” he breathes. The feeling has begun to return to his fingers. It's not an especially good feeling. They throb. Everything throbs.

 

“Then neither should you,” whispers Amell. She touches his cheek. This he feels, like a fresh wind before a storm. “Commander.”

 

“Commander!” shouts someone over the smoke, and the world swings around to the present. Cullen sits up. Three steps away from him, a Red Templar falls, its body awash in lightning.

 

Fiona lowers her staff.

 

“My, my,” says the senior mage, brushing some of the energy out of her hair. A second creature attempts a grab at her, but she dispatches it a vicious jab of her staff blade. “This brings back memories. Greetings, Commander. You appear to be alive.”

 

Cullen clutches his head. He eases himself to his feet. The world has gone curiously quiet. A bit crackly around the edges, but blessedly bereft of song. “You and your mages were under orders to keep to the back of the line.”

 

“And so we did,” says Fiona, “But as we'd cleared most of the ridge, I thought perhaps we might provide you stubborn templars with some ground support. You seemed so set on being overrun. And your arm was rather a mess. How funny, that I should be able to help you. It is almost as though magic might have some uses when allowed room to grow.”

 

This again. The Maker did have a sense of humor.

 

“Grand Enchanter,” he says, wearily. “I'm grateful for your healing spells, but please save your rhetoric for the next conclave. I am no longer a templar.”

 

“Knight-Captain,” says Fiona, smiling, “I am no longer the Grand Enchanter.”

 

“Fair point,” he says. He struggles to keep standing, but another healing spell sures him up well enough. He pulls his sword from the spot it fell in the ground. He isn't sure how it landed with perfect accuracy, tip down in the dirt, but he's not about to question who might have placed it like that. “Tell me Grand -- Ah. Lady Fiona, when you say you cleared the ridge...”

 

“I am telling you that your men are awaiting your next command,” says Fiona, “And the path to your Inquisitor is clear, if you would like to order an advance.”

 

The Commander looks ahead. The Red Templars lie in smoldering heaps across the valley floor. He spots Lysette hauling a barrel of potions. He sees Agatha adjusting the standard. The men and women stand in a bustle of activity around him. Some dead, many wounded, most alive. The song has faded but still, somewhere in the smoke, he catches a flash of silver: the silhouette of a woman, retreating into the grey, her head held high.

 

But it is only for a moment. The path up valley is littered with smoking black craters, but the way is open to him.

 

“Then let us serve,” says Commander Cullen, raising his sword. “Let us be her shield.”


End file.
